Tumble Motion Generation in Small Gasoline Engines: A New Methodological Approach for the Analysis of the Influence of the Intake Duct Geometrical Parameters

For motorbike and motor scooter applications, the optimization of the tumble generation is considered an effective way to improve the combustion system efficiency and to lower the emissions, considering also that the two-wheels layout represents an obstacle in adopting the advanced post-treatment concepts designed for the automotive applications. During the last years the deep re-examination of the engine design for lowering the engine emissions involved the two-wheel vehicles too. The IC-engine overall efficiency plays a fundamental role in determining the final raw emissions. From this point of view, the optimization of the in-cylinder flow organization is mandatory. In detail, in SI-engines the generation of a coherent tumble vortex having dimensions comparable to the engine stroke could be of primary importance to extend the engines' ignition limits toward the field of the dilute/lean mixtures. The aim of the paper is to introduce a new analysis approach for a deep insight of the 3D-CFD results performed to assess the intake duct geometry influence on the tumble motion generation during both the intake and the compression strokes. All the CFD simulations presented in the paper were performed by the AVL-FIRE v. 2010 CFD code on a SI 4 valve engine characterized by an unit displacement of 250 cm3. The tumble structure was changed during the analysis by changing the angle set defining the intake port shape. The stroke-to-bore engine ratio was kept constant to 0.7. The effects of the tumble variations were evaluated in terms of the tumble ratio, the turbulent kinetic energy and the vortex characterization at IVC. © 2013 The Authors

Numerical Analysis of In-cylinder Tumble Flow Structures – Parametric 0D Model Development

Abstract Both in the automotive and in the motorcycle fields the requirement of step-by-step improvements for optimizing the engine cycle is still present. In particular the focus of the optimization process is to reduce the raw emissions and at the same time to not penalize the engine performance. In this research field the engine modeling is of great importance because the application field of the experimental measurements is very narrow, time-consuming and expensive. Hence the modeling technique is a wide used and a wide recognized instrument for helping in the design process. Another important function of the modeling is to provide the engine designers with the most important guidelines. The main focus is to fast provide designers with some fundamentals during the first designing stage which, if not the conclusive, is close to the final project. The present paper deals with the development of a theoretic-interpretative 0D model which could highlight the most significant parameters in the engine design process and in particular in the determination of: • The tumble velocity at IVC and its residual value at TDC; • The squish velocity at TDC; • Their mutual interaction. These parameters are well recognized to be especially meaningful because they determine, at different times of the combustion process, the combustion velocity. The faster the combustion velocity, the lower the engine cycle-by-cycle variability

Development of a chemical-kinetic database for the laminar flame speed under GDI and water injection engine conditions

Abstract The use of direct injection, supercharging, stoichiometric operation and reduction of the engine displacement, necessary to limit the specific consumption without reducing the power, makes the current spark ignition engines sensible to both the detonation and the increase of the inlet turbine temperature. The current research has therefore focused on the study of strategies aimed at reducing the risk of detonation using traditional and innovative solutions such as water injection. The application and optimization of these strategies can not ignore the knowledge of physical quantities characterizing the combustion such as the laminar flame speed. The laminar burning speed is an intrinsic property of the fuel and it is function of the mixture composition (mixture fraction and dilution) and of the thermodynamic conditions. The experimental measurements of the laminar flame speed available in the literature, besides not being representative of the pressure and temperature conditions characteristic of GDI engines, rarely report the effects of dilution by EGR or water vapor. To overcome the limitations of the experimental campaign it is possible to predict the value of the laminar flame speed resorting to numerical combustion models based on chemical kinetics. The increased performance of computing systems makes affordable the use of chemical schemes with a high number of species and reactions without facing an excessive temporal cost. In this work it is presented a methodology for the construction of a laminar flame speed database based on a non-reduced kinetic scheme and an open source solver (Cantera) for a commercial gasoline surrogate under the typical conditions of GDI engines with the addition of the effects of dilution with water and EGR

Influence of the Diesel Injector Hole Geometry on the Flow Conditions Emerging from the Nozzle

Engine performances are correlated to the overall fluid dynamic characteristics of the injection system that, in turns, are strictly correlated to the fluid dynamic performance of the injector geometry. It is particularly true for actual GDI and Diesel engines where micro-orifice configurations are associated to very high injection pressure. In relation to the Common Rail Diesel engines, over the last decade different injector hole shapes have been tested. Actually, the most used configurations are: cylindrical, k, and ks. In this paper, the performance of all these three injector hole shapes are evaluated in order to find out the influence of orifice conicity and hydro-grinding level on the main fluid dynamic characteristics like cavitation evolution inside the injector as well as the flow properties at nozzle exit. The fluid dynamic behavior of each considered hole is evaluated over the injection time by performing a fully transient CFD multiphase simulation (i.e. the needle motion is reproduced during the simulation). By the proposed simulation methodology, the evaluation of the cavitating flow evolution inside the injector is performed not only from the point of view of the overall spray characteristics emerging from the injector holes but also from the cavitation erosion risk over needle, nozzle, and hole internal surfaces. © 2013 The Authors

basics on water injection process for gasoline engines

Abstract Actual and future limits to the global CO2 emissions and the necessity of a further reduction of the fossil non-renewable fuels have moved the automotive engine research toward new solutions. With focus on reciprocating internal combustion engines, the mass of CO2 emitted in the atmosphere is a function of the fuel consumption. Therefore, the designers are focusing their attention on both the drop of passive resistances and the improvement of the engine efficiency. As far as the latter is concerned, the reduction of in-cylinder temperature and the adoption of stoichiometric combustion on the full range of engine operation map are the most investigated solutions. Water injection is thought to help in fulfilling these goals thus contributing towards more efficient engines. The aim of the present work is to understand the basic thermophysical and chemical fundamentals governing the water injection application in modern downsized spark ignited engines. The investigation has been carried out with aid of CFD simulation by using AVL FIRE v.2017 solver

Large Eddy Simulation of a Steady Flow Test Bench Using OpenFOAM®

Abstract Stationary flow bench testing is a standard experimental methodology used by the automotive industry to characterize a cylinder head. In order to reduce the development time, the use of a CFD-based virtual test bench is nowadays a standard practice too. The use of a conventional \RANS\ methodology for the simulation of the flow through the ducts of an engine head allows to get only the mean flow variables distributions because the time average of the generic flow variable fluctuation is zero by definition, but the fluid-dynamics of a stationary flow bench is not really stationary due to the flow instability induced by the duct design and the interaction between valve jets in a multi-duct head. In order to obtain an in-depth knowledge of the fluid-dynamics of a stationary flow bench test rig a \LES\ simulation of a heavy duty \DI\ diesel engine head with two intake ducts, for which experimental data was available, has been carried out using OpenFOAM®. The comparison between LES, experimental and conventional \RANS\ results widened the understanding of the test-bench fluid-dynamics and of the swirl generation process. Due to the high computational cost of the \LES\ approach, the outcomes of this latter have been also used to evaluate potential accuracy improvements of the \RANS\ simulation, namely using a model sensible to flow anisotropies and curvatures such as a \RSTM\ model. The simulation with the new turbulence model has been carried out and compared with the previous results demonstrating predictive improvements with an affordable computational cost for industrial routine usage

Assessment of the Cavitation Models Implemented in OpenFOAM® Under DI-like Conditions

Abstract Direct injection engine performance is strictly correlated to the fluid dynamic characteristics of the injection system. Actual DI engines, both Diesel and gasoline, employ injector characterized by high injection pressure that, associated to micro-orifice design, result in cavitation flow conditions inside injector holes. The cavitation has a beneficial effect on the atomization process and a negative one on the physical erosion generated by the vapor bubble collapse. In order to quantify both effects with a numerical approach, the reduced dimension and the complex flow structures reduce the efficacy of an experimental approach, thus the cavitation model used is of primary importance. The present work addresses the validation of the mixture model-based cavitation models that are implemented in OpenFOAM®, with particular focus on the Schnerr and Sauer model, using the experimental results, available in literature, for a two-phase flow in an optically accessible nozzle under diesel-like conditions

numerical evaluation of the applicability of steady test bench swirl ratios to diesel engine dynamic conditions

Engine coherent flow structures such as swirl and tumble motions are key factors for the combustion process due to their capability to rise turbulence levels and enhance mixing which, in turns, severely influence both fuel efficiency and pollutant emissions. Automotive industry has therefore put great efforts over the last decades in evaluating air flow during induction stroke and air flow within the cylinder. Nowadays swirl and tumble motion characterizing a specific cylinder head are evaluated experimentally at design stage mainly using stationary flow benches. Such tests allow characterizing each head prototype using non-dimensional parameters like swirl and tumble ratios and, finally, to compare the different designs. In the present work the authors focused their attention on the swirl ratio characterization, firstly reviewing the two main methodologies for evaluating such parameter and more precisely the AVL and the Ricardo ones. A numerical method is then proposed in order to reproduce the stationary test bench with the final goal to develop a fast and accurate virtual test bench for cylinder head design. Simulations have been carried out on different VM Motori engine heads for which experimental data were available. The comparison between computational and experimental swirl ratios allowed to evaluate the suitability of using a virtual test bench as alternative or complementary to experiments. These results widened the understanding of the swirl fluid-dynamics and suggested that care must be taken when comparing duct designs having no geometrical similarity. Finally dynamic simulations have been performed for the head prototypes in order to compute the engine swirl in realistic conditions and to compare it with the steady bench results. This allowed evaluating the capability of the two different "static" swirl ratio definition (AVL/Ricardo) in correctly estimating real engine swirl. © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd